I get it, we on the floor don't see what you see- gunshots, knife cuts, fights, rape victims. But you chose that. Nursing is a wide, varied profession and ER is just a piece of it. So you work with firefighters, paramedics, police. Okay. But you're not a firefighter, paramedic or a police officer. You're a nurse. When you call the floor for report and we say we're too busy right now, we'll call you back, please don't call your boss, or the House Supervisor, and tell them we refused report. Again, I get it. Nobody is as busy as you. But we may have had our hands deep in poop, or in the middle of a dressing change, or with a doctor, or administering chemotherapy. Or we may be already getting report from the offgoing shift. And yes, another nurse is just as busy and can't take the report I would rather get first hand anyway. When we get report from you for a hip fracture patient and you say the BP is 191/92 and she has a history of hypertension, please don't get offended if I ask if you've covered the blood pressure. I know she's being admitted with a hip fracture and not for hypertension. But hypertension is something we're aware of, because it is also bad. If you send the patient up without covering the BP, by the time she's moved from gurney to bed that BP has spiked to over 200 and I have a possible stroke to add to that fracture. Will it kill you to walk over to your MD, the one with whom you enjoy a closer relationship, and ask for some Vasotec? And while you're at it, could you not forget some pain meds before you send the patient to the floor? You see, I have to call the admitting MD, that very MD your doctor just spoke with to admit the patient, and wait until he calls back, before I can give any medications. That can and does take hours. Meanwhile I have an increasingly uncomfortable, unstable patient and a family who is getting very concerned that this new nurse can't help their mother.
I'm sorry for the long post, but I just read another Megalomaniac ER blog slamming floor nurses as stupid and lazy, refusing report, fighting with ER because they're uncomfortable taking unstable patients ER wants to move because they need the beds. There is more than just you, ER.
Often we have to page housekeeping when we get notified of an admission. And, no, I won't be cleaning the room. I don't have the time, equipment, or training.
Not good when a patient and family arrives to a dirty, tore-up room. Plus, admissions aren't my favorite thing, but they are part of my job. The sooner I can get the patient settled with orders, the better for all of us.
I guess I am wondering why you would wait until an admission to call housekeeping to clean the room? Why wouldn't they have been called when the last patient left so the room is admission ready? Just wondering.....
I guess I am wondering why you would wait until an admission to call housekeeping to clean the room? Why wouldn't they have been called when the last patient left so the room is admission ready? Just wondering.....
Hell more often than not, I'm cleaning the room in the ER. Ambulance shows up, waits for a room to open up, as the old patient is leaving, I'm in there cleaning. There's no page the housekeeper and make the ambulance wait for 20 minutes. It just gets done.
I guess I am wondering why you would wait until an admission to call housekeeping to clean the room? Why wouldn't they have been called when the last patient left so the room is admission ready? Just wondering.....
Short answer? Apparently night shift doesn't need services like housekeeping, linen, dietary, etc. I should say that we DO have housekeeping, but its a skeleton crew, like maybe one person. They aren't able to clean rooms that aren't needed. They ARE notified, but unneeded rooms will wait for day-shift.
Short answer? Apparently night shift doesn't need services like housekeeping, linen, dietary, etc. I should say that we DO have housekeeping, but its a skeleton crew, like maybe one person. They aren't able to clean rooms that aren't needed. They ARE notified, but unneeded rooms will wait for day-shift.
Y'all must not fill up very often.
It's pretty much assumed that once a room opens up in our hospital, it will quickly be filled. We're often on "no bed" status.
I think that *intervention* by that hospital is the best idea I've heard in a long time!
I was afraid there. I was thinking to myself "What if she answers with another run/string along word you can't make out and you have to ""just go with it"" again"?
I was going to really pour it on then:
"Why Altra, you look so much younger with your hair that way. I see you have 30 yrs experience, but IDK.............cause I hardly believe you are even 30 years old right now".
Theres more where that came from. Its been building up ever since I quit going to bars. I have to release it somewhere.
This is just as bad as the "night shift has it easier than day shift" argument. Admits at shift change suck for everyone. If I cannot take report, I ask the charge nurse.
I guess I am wondering why you would wait until an admission to call housekeeping to clean the room? Why wouldn't they have been called when the last patient left so the room is admission ready? Just wondering.....
The way it seems to work at my hospital is that we're told we have a room to send a patient to the MOMENT the patient upstairs is out of their room. Housekeeping is notified right away too, but they aren't genies so sometimes it takes time for them to walk to the room and clean it. And, like nurses, most housekeeping workers are on the ball but a handful are sloooooow. If they're short staffed or have had a day of heavy room turnovers, even the most on-the-ball housekeepers get behind.
Another issue that slows room turnover in my hospital is, as a peds hospital, sometimes beds need to be switched for cribs and vice versa.
This whole thread has reminded me of another inter-departmental beef at my hospital: OR vs ER. The OR folks at my hospital are all a bunch of stretcher thieves- they'll come and get patients and transport them to the OR in our stretchers, then want to go through ALL their pre-op stuff while the patient is STILL in OUR stretcher (rather than just move them to one of their stretchers to do all that, which they have to do eventually anyway) and we have a room without a stretcher meanwhile just sitting there. The kicker is, the OR always has a long line of stretchers outside in the hall, but they will still try to snatch ours up. Ok, it's not everyone from the OR, but it happens enough that whenever we see someone from the OR come down to the ER without their own stretcher we watch them CLOSELY.
Altra, BSN, RN
6,255 Posts
:hhmth:*wine
I think that *intervention* by that hospital is the best idea I've heard in a long time!